Today, February 17, some five-hundred persons succeeded in breeching the double steel-mesh fence that separates Spanish Ceuta from Morocco. This barrier is extremely sophisticated. Normally the sixteen feet high fence has seemed to be impenetrable but today´s episode shows that truly desperate people who risk their very lives crossing hundreds and hundreds of miles of Sahara desert will breach the most formidable steel or concrete barriers in their path to a life of hope. In the USA we should learn from the Spain experience of today. Even a thousand miles of wall will not solve the problem of illegal entry into the United States since it will not cure the social illnesses that promote their escape from home. Continue reading “500 desperate people”
Author: overcoffee879
Donald Trump before a live microphone or in front of a crowd of two who are willing to applaud and/or drool gives evidence that modesty is to be avoided at all costs. In today´s Spanish press, normally dismayed into silence at his oracular declarations, quoted him to have said that “never in the history of the nation has any president done in such a short period as much as I have”. Of course his endless effort at national salvation is understandable when it is weighted in the context of his considered opinion that the Obama years were a disastrous period in US history from every point of view. In what seemed more like a campaign pitch, rather than a press conference, our man in Washington waxed more and more outraged that the press would call the grandeur of these last two weeks into doubt. Of course he concluded that they are evil people who protect special interests. He could have at least excepted Fox and other sources of reporting the news rather than inventing it. In conclusion, Trump is well covered here. Every attempt is made to quote him out of context just like CNN and the NYT. Now, dear reader, please remember that is was Churchill was said “never in a thousand years …”. Just in case he´s been reading again in search of the right thing to say at the improper moment. Continue reading “Modesty is the best policy”
The Spanish press is giving echo to the indignation brought on by the administration´s ruling against entry into the United States by persons with the nationality of specific Islamic nations in North Africa and the Near East. Like many of you I find such a limitation on entry into the country to be naïve since it offers no guarantee at all against what its sponsors claim for it. Also, it is highly offensive to millions of persons. As we know, there is no such thing as a small enemy. Should the priests of terror want to harm us they would send in one of their zombies who, behind the local Dairy Queen, would hook up with a home grown or imported troll who would hand over a suitcase full of dynamite and shrapnel. Having said this, let´s give the administration at least a wait and see attitude toward its evolving immigrant controls measures.
Since President Clinton´s time and on through the Obama years, we have witnessed an on again, of again, sometimes yes, and sometimes no but usually a who knows policy of border control. Just maybe, the Trump administration is working to seriously put a policy into place. What Mr. Obama´s government started with the serious expulsion of illegals and criminal illegals was a move in the right direction. His decision to extend the barriers at the Mexican-US border was logical since millions of undocumented persons cross over the Rio Grande almost at will. Mr. Trump´s stance, then, is really a continuation of the steps taken during the last sixteen years to secure that our home does not receive any more uninvited guests.
Of course the United States should continue to welcome immigrants but on our terms. A nation has every right/obligation to secure its borders. While Spain supports the outrage of Mexicans against the fence along the Rio Grande it maintains its own fence facing Morocco. The disaster of wide open borders brought on Brexit and the revolt of millions of Europeans against a peaceful invasion out of Turkey and North Africa. Poland has slammed closed its border. Hungry, Austria and Slovenia have put up obstacles too. By some mysterious means migrants are entering Norway via Russia. Greece and Italy are at saturation. So it would seem to me that any advice out of Madrid or Paris or Berlin or Budapest or Vienna or Brussels or Amsterdam on the question can be ignored as tongue in cheek political jargon to placate the bleachers. If Mr. Trump and his administration are moving to secure logical solutions for the future in a serious manner, well, let´s give them a chance. Also, the real issue here is what we do to solve a problem and what Mexico is not doing to prevent it at its source. Maybe the protesters in Mexico City could identify things closer to home that need fixing. For example, the tradition of the mordida/bribes and toleration of organized crime constitute crippling forces that impoverish the nation´s millions while it allows a few patriots a life of Nirvana on Earth. Immigration? Of course, immigrants are men and women who have a right to a future they can´t achieve at home, but with an invitation in hand! For the millions from the south who are now among us, the administration might put in place a generous policy to allow them to become US citizens via a quicker route in a now or never procedure. At the end of the day the decision is ours, not theirs. I fully approve an opening of our southern door but is must be on our terms as evidence of our needs, our willingness and our means.
1860 Charleston, 2017 Barcelona
In a visit to Madrid on February 9, the president of the European Parliament, Mr. Antonio Trajani, clearly stated that the EU would never accept an independent Catalonia if that independence were achieved contrary to and in open violation of the Spanish constitution. While the former president of the Catalonian Autonomous Region, Mr. Arthur Mas and the present regional president, Mr. Carles Puigdemont, have blindly insisted that an independent Catalonia would be welcome within the community of European nations, the reality is that they are passing off wishful thinking as fact. What Mr. Trajani stated publically yesterday in Madrid is what the president of the Spanish government and all leaders of Spain´s major national parties have stated again and again and again. The Spanish constitution of 1978 was approved in a plebiscite by the vast majority of voters in all the Spain´s autonomous regions, including Catalonia. Under that document which is the citadel of all law and human dignity in the country, cession is impossible without a national referendum called to approve it. This means that a vote on independence within Catalonia is about as valid at the decision in South Carolina, in 1860, to declare itself independent of the Union. Of course the Catalonian nationalists do not want to hear talk about such a referendum since they know that it would be rejected nationally, and as in Quebec, on the autonomous level also. Mas, Puigdemont and their old fashioned, early XX century leftist dreamers and allies are not heroes. They are cynical or naive and blind leaders who would push Catalonia into the disaster of outsider status. Europe doesn´t need a myriad of small counties. There are enough of them already. The Union exists to unite. They insist that free, Catalonia could apply for membership to be welcomed with open arms. Sure! How many counties now part of the Union would feel a unilateral declaration of independence in an anticonstitutional Republic of Catalonia to be a wake-up call to popularists in their corner of Europe? Hello! Wake up and smell the coffee there in Barcelona. Mas, the boss, and Puigdemont constantly call for dialogue on independence with Madrid. The Spanish prime minister has accepted possible conversations on a variety of options for Catalonia within Spain. Mas and Puidemont only want talks in which the when and how of their demands would be satisfied. Mr. Rajoy responds that as chief of government he cannot negotiate a reality that violates the constitution he is sworn to uphold and defend. The nationalists have rejected or ignored the many suggestions of constitutional reform, many from within Catalonia, that would incorporate even more autonomy into the already very federal-like relationship between the various regions of Spain and Madrid. Since 1492 Catalonia has been a constituent part of Spain. It was never an independent country. In Catalonia, their language and culture are flowering with no interference from Madrid. Within the region there are ample demands that Spanish be a co-language since many people understand that for them to be a real part of the world out there they need to know an international language. If Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, and many other counties can live with it, what´s the problem?
Very sad, but true.
-Word has it that Rajoy´s telephone conversation with Trump went very well.
-How can you be sure?
-Simple, Trump didn´t hang up on him!
overcoffee 